QPR want Ranieri to replace Warnock
Published 23:01 11/05/11 By Martin Lipton - EXCLUSIVE
Former Chelsea boss Claudio Ranieri is being lined up to replace Neil Warnock at Championship winners QPR.
The Loftus Road club's millionaire owners want their fellow countryman to take their side back into the Premier League.
Ranieri, out of work since being sacked by Roma in February, knows Rangers chief Gianni Paladini well and is expected in London in the next few days to discuss a return to English football.
That comes despite the QPR chairman describing the prospect of Warnock being sacked as "nonsense" .
Warnock had questioned his own position publicly following the confirmation the club would not have points deducted over the signing of Alejandro Faurlin.
Ranieri spent four years at Stamford Bridge after replacing Gianluca Vialli in 2000, and has since been at Valencia, Parma, Juventus and his first love, Roma.
The 59-year-old, the first man to suffer from the death by a thousand cuts under Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, has never hidden a desire to come back to English football.
Pressed on the possibility of taking charge at Loftus Road, he said: "I don't know anything about QPR.
"But I love English football and if something happened I'd think about it."
